


so hard to keep this smile from my face

by mozaikmage



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Bodyswap, Fluff, KuroDai Week, KuroDai Week 2018, M/M, your name-style bodyswitching mechanics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-03 06:44:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14563299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mozaikmage/pseuds/mozaikmage
Summary: KuroDai Week Day 1: Bodyswap





	so hard to keep this smile from my face

**Author's Note:**

> title from Stuck In The Middle With You  
> so funny story I forgot day 1 of kurodai week was today so I typed like 1/3 of this just now and also this is completely unbeta-d have fun

A few weeks after Nationals, Sawamura Daichi wakes up to an alarm he does not recognize in a bedroom that definitely does not belong to him. 

He shuts off the alarm automatically, blinking at the dark unfamiliar space. This room is cleaner and smaller than his own, a few music posters neatly taped up on the walls. The open closet appears to be organized as well, and there’s a red jersey hanging in it that Daichi recognizes instantly.

“What the fuck,” Daichi says, and then freezes. That..is not Daichi’s voice. He runs to the bathroom and...yup. Nekoma’s captain, Kuroo Tetsurou, stares back at Daichi in the mirror. 

_ What the fuck. _

“Of all the things I did not ask for,” Daichi mutters. It’s not like he has anything against Kuroo. They’re on decent terms, Daichi supposes. The two captains had exchanged contact info after training camp and everything, even if they didn’t really do much with that contact info. He would like to get to know Kuroo better, sure, but not by literally  _ being _ Kuroo.

He unlocks Kuroo’s phone with his thumbprint. The lockscreen is a photo of Nekoma’s setter surrounded by cats. He scrolls through Kuroo’s contact for his phone number, thinking if they’d switched places, he can just call Kuroo-in-Daichi’s-body and figure out what to do from there.

Kuroo had saved Daichi’s number as “Crow Father,” followed by a volleyball emoji, a bird emoji, and a...flexing bicep emoji. Daichi rolls his eyes and hits call, but no one picks up.

Well then. In the event that this wasn’t a weird dream, Daichi doesn’t want to fuck up Kuroo’s life entirely. He’ll just...do his best, he supposes.

There’s a small planner on the desk with sticky note tabs sticking out of it, and to Daichi’s relief it has all of Kuroo’s to-dos for the day marked out in easy-to-read handwriting.

Kuroo’s mother sticks her head in as Daichi’s trying his best to figure out how to tie the uniform tie. The planner says there isn’t morning practice today, so, school uniform time.

“What are you doing, Tettsun?” she says incredulously, watching Daichi struggle. Maybe he should’ve looked up a tutorial video on his phone or something.

“...I’m trying a new tie knot?” 

“Really,” Kuroo’s mom says.

They stare at each other for a few excruciating seconds. Kuroo’s mom looks like him, with thick wavy black hair gathered into a side ponytail and an angular face. 

She sighs and gestures towards herself. Daichi complies. Kuroo’s body towers over his mother’s, which is unsettling. He’s not  _ that  _ much shorter than Kuroo, but being Kuroo-shaped for the day makes Daichi feel like he’s been stretched out on a medieval torture-rack or something. It’s weird. Everything about this situation is weird. 

“And  _ that’s _ how you tie a Windsor knot, Tettsun,” Kuroo’s mom is saying, and Daichi realizes he retained none of that information. Whoops. Hopefully he won’t have to deal with this tie again.

Someone knocks on the door when they’re eating breakfast. It’s...Daichi should probably stop thinking of him as “Nekoma’s Setter,” shouldn’t he. Kenma. That is what Kuroo usually calls him, right?

“Kenma, good morning!” Kuroo’s mom exclaims, opening the door. “Did you eat breakfast yet?”

Kenma nods a tiny bit. He blinks at Daichi in a way that makes Daichi feel like he’s taking a test in a subject he knows nothing about.

The rest of the day passes in a stressful, surreal blur. Daichi spends most of it quietly panicking over the idea of practicing volleyball as a 10-centimeters-taller middle blocker, but when he gets there it turns out all that’s expected of him is to lead drills and give pointers, which he can do just fine. He catches Kenma squinting at him suspiciously, and Yaku too, but at least he knows he’s giving good advice.

“Kuroo-san, please practice with me!” Lev demands, and Daichi cringes.

“Ah, I’m feeling a bit under the weather today...shouldn’t you be working on your receives with Yaku?” Daichi knows he doesn’t quite sound like Kuroo sounds in practices, but he’s trying, okay.

“A bit under the weather, huh,” Kenma mumbles.

When Daichi wakes up the next morning in his own bedroom he almost cries with relief. There’s three post-it notes covering his phone screen, Kuroo’s neat handwriting instructing Daichi to “please join the modern era and use your fingerprint to lock your phone.”    
Daichi calls Kuroo’s phone.

“To be fair, my pin code has now been proven to prevent people who are not me from unlocking my cell phone,” Daichi tells him when Kuroo picks up.

“Good morning to you too, Sawamura,” Kuroo says. “So we did switch bodies and it wasn’t just a stress-induced fever dream?” 

“Apparently so.”

Kuroo hesistates, and then blurts out “So what was your phone password? I tried your birthday, KRSN, SWMR, and I was gonna try Suga-chan’s birthday too but realized I don’t actually know it off the top of my head.”

“But you know my birthday off the top of your head?”

Kuroo huffs. “It’s New Year’s Eve, dude, that’s an incredibly easy day of birth to remember.”

“That’s fair.” A thought occurs to Daichi. “You didn’t call Suga ‘Suga-chan’ to his face, did you?”

There is an extended pause. “I’m pretty sure I didn’t?” Kuroo says eventually. “Oh god, is that your password? ‘Suga?’ Are you two like a  _ thing _ ?”

“No and no, ew. I can’t date Suga, he knows too much.”

Kuroo laughs on the other end of the line.

“Anyway. What did you do yesterday?” Daichi asks. “Please tell me you didn’t embarrass me in front of everyone.”

“It was pretty much fine, honestly. You guys don’t go to practice anymore now that you’re cramming for exams?”

“I try to check in once a week, but Ennoshita needs to learn how to lead without me, so. By the way, thanks for the color-coded planner, it was really easy to stick to your schedule.”

“You’re welcome,” Kuroo tells him, and Daichi can hear him grinning. Awful. “I need it to survive.”

“Do you think this switch thing is likely to happen again?” 

“I have no idea. But in case it does, can you please set a fingerprint lock on your phone so I don’t suffer?”

Daichi chuckles. “Will do, captain.”

“Thanks, captain.”

Daichi’s mother knocks at the door and tells him he’s almost late for school.

“You’re normal again today,” is the first thing Suga tells him when they meet up on the walk to school.

“What is that supposed to mean? What happened yesterday?”

“You don’t remember?” Suga’s looking at him with calculating eyes normally reserved for the volleyball court.

“I was really out of it?” Daichi tries.

“Right,” Suga says, unconvinced. 

“It was just a weird day. Probably won’t happen again.”

“But if it does happen again you’ll tell me, right?”  

Daichi nods. “So what’d I do yesterday?”

“Not much, honestly. Forgot to meet me and Asahi for lunch, we had to go get you from your classroom.”

Daichi’s shoulders drop from relief. “Okay.”

Hopefully, it really was a one-off glitch in the matrix.

\---

It was not a one-off glitch in the matrix.

The second switch happens about a week after the first one, exactly the same way. Daichi wastes no time in calling Kuroo-in-Daichi’s-body.

“What the fuck, Kuroo? Why is this happening again? Why did it happen in the first place? What the fuck did you do?”

“Why do you think I did something?” Kuroo snaps back. “It could just as easily have been something you did. Or aliens. God, I don’t know what’s going on.”

“We’re going to have to tell Suga,” Daichi says. “And Kozume, probably. They’re already suspicious of something weird going on.”

“Think they’ll believe us?”

“Do you have any better ideas?” Daichi flops back onto Kuroo’s bed. “God, I still don’t really know how to tie a tie.”

Kuroo laughs at him, the bastard. “Stay calm, Sawamura, we did this once without dying, we can do it again.”

Daichi hates to admit it, but Kuroo telling him to stay calm actually does make him feel a little bit calmer.

“Fine,” Daichi says.

Daichi struggles with the stupid tie, again, and Kenma comes over while Daichi’s eating breakfast, again. Except this time, the minute they’re out the door, Kenma exhales and says,

“What’s going on, Kuro?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re acting weird,” Kenma says. “All spacey and confused. This is the second time in two weeks you’re being the same kind of weird. What’s going on.”

Daichi looks at Kenma carefully, or as carefully as he can with one eye hidden beneath Kuroo’s annoying bangs. “Would you believe me if I said I’m not actually Kuroo Tetsurou right now?”

Kenma looks thoughtful, then pulls his PSP out of his pocket and turns it on. “So you switched bodies with someone. I guess that works. Who are you, then?”

“Sawamura Daichi? Karasuno’s captain? Or ex-captain now I guess.”

Kenma startles at that, for some reason. “Huh.”

“Yeah. We just woke up in each other’s places one morning, and then switched back the next day, and now it’s happening again.”

“Why you?” Kenma asks, and it sounds like a genuine question. 

Daichi just shrugs. “I don’t know how it started or why.”

“I’ll tell the coaches you’re skipping practice to study for exams today,” Kenma says firmly, and buries himself in his video game.

\---

Meanwhile, Suga is walking to school with Kuroo in Sawamura’s body.

“Daichi,” Suga says, poking him in the shoulder. “You told me that if the weird thing happened again you’d tell me about it, right? Is it happening again?”

Kuroo freezes. Suga stops walking and looks at him, smiling slightly in a way that strikes fear right into Kuroo’s heart. “How did you know?”

“You’re not wearing your scarf today, you’re  _ smirking _ , you don’t respond to me as quickly, and last week you forgot to meet me and Asahi for lunch.”

Kuroo cringes. “So uh, funny story, I’m actually not Sawamura Daichi.”

Suga’s eyes get wide. “Really,” he says. “So then, who are you actually?”

“Kuroo from Nekoma,” he says, and then does finger guns at Suga for some unholy reason. Kuroo regrets it immediately, but it makes Suga laugh in surprised delight.

“Okay, I guess I’m convinced. So do you just switch for a day and then switch back? Randomly?”

“That’s what it looks like. Hasn’t happened enough times for us to figure out a pattern yet, or a way to make it stop.”

Suga smiles innocently. “In movies and stuff, don’t the characters have to kiss to switch back?”

Kuroo goggles at him.

“Sorry, sorry,” Suga says with a laugh, brushing it off. “We’re not close enough yet for that, are we?”

They keep walking, and Suga keeps looking at Kuroo like he’s studying all the ways Kuroo is failing to pretend to be Sawamura.

“It’s very strange, but now that I know I totally see it. You walk differently. Try putting your shoulders back more, like this.” Suga demonstrates.

Kuroo copies him. By the time they reach the front doors of the school, Suga has corrected Kuroo’s walk, default facial expression, uniform, and method of greeting anyone Sawamura interacts with on a regular basis.

“I feel like I’ve gained a greater understanding of how your volleyball club works together,” Kuroo tells him, and Suga rolls his eyes.

“We’re a team, so we act like a team. Also, you buy the underclassmen meat buns after practice on Fridays.”

“How does Sawamura’s wallet stand it?”

Suga shrugs.

 

They make it through the second switch alright, and when they switch back, there’s a detailed report in both of their phones of everything that went down for each of them. 

“Two switches don’t make a pattern,” Kuroo tells Daichi. “But if it keeps happening, we should like. Do something to keep things from getting too messed up.”

“Stop untying your uniform tie, please.”

Kuroo cackles. “Sawamura Daichi, soon-to-be high school graduate, still can’t tie a tie?”   
“I’ve never needed to!” 

“It’s an important life skill,” Kuroo continues. “You’re gonna go to college for business or something, aren’t you? You’ll need to wear ties for that.”

“What do you mean, ‘business or something?’”

“Please. You are the definition of steady, practical, model son. What are you actually applying to schools for?”

“...business,” Daichi admits after a prolonged pause. “But now I don’t want to learn how to tie this thing out of spite.”

“You continue to surprise me at every turn,” Kuroo says. Daichi can hear the smile in his voice. He’s not sure what it means.

The switches keep happening, once or twice a week for the next few months. Kuroo is frustrated there doesn’t seem to be any sort of pattern to them.

“Wouldn’t it be so cool if this thing synced with the lunar cycle, like werewolves?” Kuroo texts him once.

“What are we, manga protagonists?” Daichi sends back. That’s another new thing. They’re texting and calling and generally communicating a lot more, even on days when they’re in their own bodies. Little life updates. It’s nice, Daichi thinks, the process of slowly getting to know a new friend. Maybe more than a friend, he thinks sometimes.

One night, they’ve switched places and are debriefing after the day when Kuroo suddenly says, “The night sky is so clear here in the boonies, have you noticed? I can see like actual constellations and shit from your balcony.”

“Glad you’re enjoying the provincial life,” Daichi says dryly. He’s still not used to hearing his own voice on the other end of a phone call. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to it.

“I’d tell you about them, you know. If we were in the same place again,” Kuroo says, voice low. “I had an astronomy phase in elementary school and I still remember some stuff.”

“Next time,” Daichi tells him. “We can drive somewhere far away from civilization entirely, even further than Miyagi, and you can tell me all about the stars.”

Kuroo’s silent for a while after that. “How can you say things like that so casually, Sawamura?”

One day, the switch happens on a Sunday. Daichi takes a moment to savor the fact that he doesn’t need to wear a tie for once, and then checks Kuroo’s stupidly detailed planner for the day’s to-do list. The planner says “12:00 pm: meet Bokuto at train station.”

Daichi calls Kuroo. “Help.”

“Good morning, Sawam- oh. Oh right. Bokuto. Yeah that’s going to be....a thing. We’re pretty good friends, he’s probably going to notice if you fuck up.”

“Can I tell him I’m sick or something and reschedule?”

“If you tell Bokuto you’re sick, he’ll just come over with soup and medicine and lecture you on going to sleep at a reasonable hour,” Kuroo says, like it’s a regular thing that happens to him. “Kenma can confirm.”

Daichi pinches the bridge of his nose. “What were you planning on doing?”

“Just going to the arcade or something. I’ll send you the address for the arcade just in case, but you can let Bokuto take the lead. Fuck it, you can even tell him we’ve switched bodies, he’ll probs think you’re just messing with him.”

“Okay. We’ll. See how it goes.”

“What were you planning on doing today?” Kuroo asks him.

“Homework. There’s some reminders in my phone.”   
“I can’t do your homework for you, that’s cheating.”   
Daichi lets out a breath. “Either you do everything on my to-do list for today or I’m taking the train to Miyagi and doing it myself.”

“Hey, if you tried to kill me while I’m in your body, which of us would actually die?”

“Kuroo, it is too fucking early for philosophical arguments.”

Kuroo cackles. “If you get stuck just text me, okay? You’ll be fine.”

So Daichi meets Bokuto without Bokuto noticing anything off, and they go to the arcade and blow some money on games, and it’s fun. Up until the point where they go to the mall and Bokuto asks, “So how’s that Sawamura Seduction Plan coming along?”

Daichi chokes on his canned tea. “What,” he sputters.

“That’s what you called it,” Bokuto says, wiggling his eyebrows. “Something about texting him as much as possible until he realizes how awesome you are?”

“Really.” Daichi’s always known Kuroo was a schemer, but that seems unusually vague as far as Kuroo Plans (TM) go.

“Yeah. So? Any progress?”   
Daichi tries his best attempt at Kuroo’s signature smirk. “It’s getting somewhere, maybe.” He’s not sure what to do with this information. Not while they keep switching with each other.

\---

Suga has taken to greeting Daichi in the mornings by frowning at him for a few minutes before declaring, “Yeah, you’re Daichi today,” like it’s a test of his powers of observation or something. Kenma too, whenever Daichi and Kuroo switch on a school day he squints at Daichi and says, “...Sawamura-san?” And then nods when Daichi confirms it. Suga and Kuroo get on like a house on fire, but Kenma’s still closed off to him. Daichi doesn’t take it too personally.

They figure out a system that works. Then Suga and Daichi go up to Tokyo to take a college admissions test.

“You should meet up with Kuroo,” Suga says, plucking Daichi’s phone out of his hand in a single motion to text Kuroo. “Maybe the switching thing will stop once you guys make contact again in real life.”

Daichi takes his phone back before Suga can press send on a message with way too many kaomojis for Daichi’s tastes. “Okay, okay. Let’s all get lunch after the test, then?”

When Daichi wakes up the morning of the exam in his own bed, he’s thrilled, and then mildly concerned that he’s gotten so used to waking up in Kuroo’s room at random intervals. There’s a message waiting for him.

“Good thing we’re both equally good at school, huh? Imagine if we’d switched today, that’d be awful,” Kuroo’s sent. “Anyway, good luck! Get here safe. I’ll see you later!”

“You’re smiling way too much for someone about to take a standardized test,” Suga tells Daichi on the train.

The test goes about as well as can be expected, and they meet up with Kuroo at the exit of a subway station. It’s...weird to see him again, when the last time Daichi saw that face was in a mirror. He knew Kuroo was taller than him, but now that they’re standing in front of each other that several-centimeter difference feels suddeny infinite. Kuroo’s leaning against a pillar in casual clothes, checking his phone and glancing around anxiously. Daichi’s heart beats faster, anticipating something, but he’s not sure what.

“Suga-chan! Sawamura!” Kuroo waves at them both, and there’s a moment of hesitation before Daichi thinks “fuck it” and throws his arms around Kuroo in a hug. Kuroo stumbles back a bit, clearly not expecting it, but when Daichi lets go the other boy looks just as embarrassed as Daichi feels, which is a promising sign.

Suga raises his eyebrows and beams at them both. “You know what, I think I forgot my hat at the testing site, I’m going to go back for it. Good seeing you again, Kuroo! Daichi, I’ll meet you by the shinkansen gates twenty minutes before our return train’s supposed to leave. Have fun!”

“You didn’t even bring a hat today!” Daichi yells after him, but Suga’s already gone.

“Suga-chan is certainly something, huh,” Kuroo says. “Well, I know a really good ramen place a few blocks away, if you’re interested?”

“Ramen sounds great.”

They eat and talk about life, and talking to Kuroo feels ridiculously easy now. Daichi realizes suddenly that by literally living as Kuroo for a few days, he knows more about Kuroo now than he does about almost anyone else. He knows what Kuroo’s mom thinks of him, how much Kuroo loves cats and stars and schedules, how Kuroo’s hair ends up looking like that.

“So,” Daichi says, when they’ve finished eating and are wandering around the neighborhood. “Bokuto told me something very interesting when we hung out that one time.”

Kuroo stops walking. “Did he now.”

Daichi takes a few steps closer to Kuroo. “You had a plan to seduce me, huh?”

“Maybe,” Kuroo says, watching him carefully. “Hypothetically, though, would you be interested?”

“You know, in manga the characters stop switching places after they kiss,” Daichi says. 

“But if we stop switching places, I won’t have an excuse to talk to you all the time,” Kuroo mumbles, eyes trained on Daichi’s mouth.

“Do you honestly think that we’ll stop talking to each other if we’re not constantly going back and forth like this?”

“No, but I’m allowed to have my irrational fears, okay?” Kuroo looks Daichi in the eye, and it’s the first time Daichi can remember seeing Kuroo look so vulnerable. “Just to be clear: I really like you, and I want to keep talking to you and hanging out with you and maybe kiss you if you’re okay with that.”

“Sounds good to me,” Daichi says, and kisses him.

There is no flash of light, or mysterious wind or anything that indicates the switching thing being over. But the days turn into weeks turn into months, and Daichi doesn’t wake up in Kuroo’s body again. Waking up next to Kuroo’s body, on the other hand, turns into a surprisingly regular occurence once college starts and they find themselves in the same place.

**Author's Note:**

> talk to me on [tumblr](http://cubistemoji.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](http://twitter.com/mashazart/)  
> 


End file.
